Don't Look Back in Anger

LEE & NEIL MORRIS

"In some ways," says Lee Morris, "I'm glad that they are together, although I would have preferred it if they had actually died together. Mum had to deal with the aftermath of dad's death and that probably helped to kill her in less than a week afterwards."

Lee and his brother Neil look tired. No wonder, as Lee was up until 3am the morning before this interview helping to sort out the two Chrysalis Racing GSX-R1000 race bikes that sit in the workshop at the end of the garden.

Neil, meanwhile, works in a bike shop to keep the money coming in, to help support Chrysalis Racing.

The workshop at the end of the garden was their father's, Dave Morris, but the team, Chrysalis Racing, belonged to both Dave and their mother, Alison.

Dave died racing at Croft on September 19th, 1999, while battling in the second Supermono Championship race after lifting the title in the first race.

Alison died just six days later, of a suspected deep vein thrombosis, something she'd suffered from following a trip to the Daytona 200 races a few years before.

Daytona was where I met them both.

Alison was vibrant and full of life. She was also team manager, co-ordinator, sponsorship gatherer, campaigner for the singles class and a writer. Dave was the precision engineer who prepped the bikes, he was also mechanic and rider. Quiet, smiling, studious. And very, very fast on a motorcycle - winner of three Isle of Man TT singles races, 1992 Sound of Singles British Champion and 1999 Supermono champion.

A few years on and I'm chatting to Lee and Neil, who are the spitting image of their parents, Lee following Alison in looks and temperament and Neil sharing the quieter nature of Dave.

It's an awful question to ask, but just how do you deal with losing both parents within so short a space of time?

"A big part of it hit me when the post came on the Tuesday after the Sunday dad died," says Lee. "As people heard they sent so many letters of condolence that the postman had to knock on the door to deliver them all. You could see he didn't want to have to do it, but it was better than sticking the lot through the letterbox. As he handed me the post, you could see this 'you poor bastard' expression on his face. I just thought to myself, 'I cannot trust life again.'"

Neither of the brothers were there at Croft when Dave lost his life.

Lee says, "We were gutted in many respects that we weren't there. For mum's sake, really, as we heard it wasn't pretty. Just before the race and in a rare bit of arrogance, dad told me that he'd have the title sewn up anyway and that I should worry about my own race the week after."

When Alison collapsed and died just six days later, Lee and Neil had to deal with yet more grief as well as rushing around trying to ensure that everything was in place for Alison and Dave to have a joint funeral.

For both of them, the funeral service was the toughest thing they'd ever done in their lives. Understandably.

"Getting up there to speak in front of everyone was unbelievably hard," says Neil. "For the ceremony we put in little touches that mum and dad would have loved. Lee had a suit in the colours of the team, and I wanted to go wearing my team gear of team-shirt and trousers. Then I realised what mum would have said, about looking professional. So I wore a suit but had a team tie-pin and a pit pass in my pocket. It was as if it was dad coming in to the pits at the TT. We had to look after him and see him on his way...and then mum. They both had excellent music tastes, The Doors and Brian Ferry and new stuff. We played Greenday's Time of Your Life, which talks about forks in the road and decisions you make in life, it really summed them up. I cried when I heard that. Brian Ferry was playing as we left the church, and I remember looking at Lee and we just smiled at each other. It was the sort of ceremony that they would have wanted."

Lee adds, "A very close friend of ours is religious and did all that trying to get us into religion bit, and I went to church a couple of times, but I just couldn't get into it, it was the old story of 'what sort of God can let two people like my mum and dad die?'"

Instead, they turned to racing to help them with their grief, although not all of their closest friends agreed with them.

"We've got a lovely surrogate mum who lives nearby, but she thinks we are mad to carry on working in racing. But we're like a circus family. We've been born into this, it's all we know. We've lost two-thirds of the most important pieces in our lives, but racing is still there for us. Mum and dad never really had a holiday or stuff, but I'd see them in the paddock together and you could see racing was their social life. They loved it."

Both brothers decided to carry on Chrysalis Racing with the aim of racing at the 2000 TT in the singles class, with John McGuinness on their dad's bike and Jason Griffiths on a replica.

Even their competitors, such as Honda UK's racing boss Bob McMillan, helped out by allowing McGuinness to ride for them - despite the fact that he would be up against Honda's own rider. Sadly, not everyone was supportive.

"When we decided to go racing at the TT, in memory of mum and dad, we even got a letter from the TT organisers warning us against it"' says Neil. "It said something along the lines of not being able to emulate mum and dad's successes with Chrysalis Racing."

Stripping down Dave's bikes in preparation for the race was an emotional moment for the boys, but also one of pride, to see the quality and skill that had gone into them.

Neil explains. "Dad was an unbelievable precision engineer. The barrels of the single were machined out of solid billet and it took him 500 hours to make one! Unbelievable. When we stripped the racebikes down, one of the guys who helped us started laughing. Looking at the chain, you could see where dad had used a small drill to lighten each individual link on it."

In June last year Lee and Neil witnessed the sweetest result possible, McGuinness first and Griffifths second.

It was a fitting result for the memory of their parents who had such a love of each other and of motorcycle racing.

"That love was reflected in their racing lives," explains Lee. "For example, when it was my dad's birthday, mum had the floor of his workshop concreted, and wrote in the wet cement 'Happy Birthday, I love you.' She also once bought dad a Harris frame for his bike that he needed. He couldn't afford it, so mum promptly goes out and cashes in an endowment policy and without telling him buys him the frame for the TT - but then adds a dash of her own unique style, by telling dad that he has catalogue-type monthly repayments to meet! Those sorts of things may seem strange, but racing was their life and passion."

On reflection, how do Lee and Neil feel about the cards that life has dealt them?

"After mum and dad died," Lee says, "I heard people say, 'I'd rather die than lose both parents.' You think about it and weigh it up and think to yourself, 'no, I'd give both my arms to get them back,' but then think 'well, I had 28 years of love and life with them, and for me that's worth 70 years with anyone else.'"

Neil: "For me it just put things into perspective and it sounds funny, but it did help in one way. Now I'm much more level headed, some of the insecurities I had before have gone. You don't worry about trivial things anymore, you grow-up a bit. Both of my parents were a bit worried about getting on, not being able to do what they loved. I suppose at least now they will never get old."

This year they both manage the team and rider Howard Whitby on a Suzuki GSX-R1000 in the British Superstock championship.

Racing is a struggle for both of them. Lee sold his house to prop up the team for the 2001 season and they are desperately short of sponsorship, but they're getting results and they are, after all, doing something that both of them love.

Alison and Dave may be gone, but they've left behind a legacy of a fine race team.

And more importantly, two very remarkable young men.

CLAIR RITCHIE

Graeme Ritchie only raced at the World Superbike at Brands Hatch in 1997 for some free tickets for himself and his friends.

Claire remembers how it all came about.

"Graeme's mate phoned up saying, 'hey, we can get some passes for the World Superbike race at Brands Hatch if you race there, do you fancy doing it?' Being a typical Scot he decided to take part as free tickets would be much cheaper than buying them!" she recalls.

"He decided that he would start the race if he could qualify. When he qualified for the race he was ecstatic, but was really worried about getting in Carl Fogarty's way and maybe getting mentioned during the race commentary for that."

During the race Graeme crashed at Hawthorn's corner and died a few days later from his injuries.

"He was a bit of a Peter Pan. He would say 'pension? What pension? I'm not going to live past 40.'" And he didn't.

"Graeme didn't want to get old. The thought of getting old was too normal for him. He didn't like normal."

But Claire has carried on. So successfully, in fact, that last year her team won the British Superstocks championship with Dave Jefferies on board. Thanks to a sudden disappearance of promised sponsorship, Claire and her team have taken an enforced sabbatical for 2001.

Following Graeme's death, Claire found she had no time to decide what to do with her life. Instead, as is often the case, life found something to do with her.

"One minute I was thinking, 'what am I going to do with my life?' I thought I'd spend three months on the coast of Scotland, trying to figure out what to do with myself, and then the next minute I just haven't got time. I'm suddenly running a race team, I've even got Ewan McGregor coming around for dinner for God's sake! Life has changed. Most of it since has been great. My life has never been planned, I'm a great believer in what will happen, will happen."

But after all that has taken place, why stay in racing anyway?

Claire explains. "After something like that happens, you think that if you change your life it will make grieving and everything else easier, but it doesn't. I remember at a Battle of the Twins party one year and I met a woman who had just lost her husband to racing. I remember saying to her, 'Oh my God, I don't know how you manage and you've got a child, it must be awful!' Little did I know that a couple of years later, I would be in the same situation. I often think of that. You think, 'how do these people cope?' But it's something you have to do. I found it was easier to stay in racing as that's where my friends were. And anyway, it's just in my blood. I used to race myself. I love it. The last year has been difficult as so many people were dependent on the team, but at least with Graeme you only had one grumpy git to contend with!"

Claire's team started out from austere beginnings in 1998. "During the first year we had no money," says Claire. "We ran it from a workshop at the end of the garden. We all did it for nothing, all of us. I was sleeping in the van at races."

Then Ewan McGregor put his publicity weight behind the team and in successive years Claire managed to get sponsorship from BT and Page 3.com, The Sun newspaper's glamour website. Over the years, as the team got bigger, so Claire has found it harder and harder.

"It was worse watching riders racing for you than it ever was watching Graeme. He did most of the spannering himself and I was confident of his abilities. And we all knew the risks. I was always confident that he wouldn't hurt himself through any stupidness of his own, that it would be something else. The only thing that could happen would be a freak accident, which it was. But freak things happen. At the time of his accident he had a mechanic working with him. After the accident I felt really sorry for this guy, who had the cause of the crash hanging over him. There were all sorts of things in the press at the time about the crash, which weren't true, about what had happened to the bike. It hung over this guy from August, when the crash took place, until December when the inquest was held. He had to wait that length of time to wait and see if the crash was caused by anything he had done. I was confident it wasn't his fault. In actual fact it was the clip between the two brake lines. The front mudguard ruptured and it split the brake lines, so Graeme had no front brakes as he went into Hawthorns. That mechanic is still with me, he's a diamond lad. I couldn't do without him."

From the mid 1980s, Graeme and Claire spent time building up their motorcycle business - GR Ducati, while he went racing.

Claire recalls: "I was heavily pregnant answering the phone at GR Ducati one day and a friend said, 'You had that baby yet?' I said, 'no, not yet.' A day later he rang again and said 'still not had it?' I said, 'Yes I have. I had it and I'm back in work!' I had to, to keep things going. I actually went into labour carrying front and rear paddock stands, tyre warmers, pit board and board numbers in the underpass at Brands Hatch. Still, we have a good reputation at GR Ducati, and things are still going well. We've got new premises at Wimbledon Stadium (0208 947 7555). We specialize only in Ducatis. We both had a passion for Ducatis. I can't get passionate about Japanese bikes, but I can about Ducatis. I met Massimo Bordi, the designer of the desmo four-valve engine. He is an amazing man. Max is named after him. I always want Max to realise what his father's passion were - Ducatis and racing! Max is fine about what happened, I've always been very open about his dad. My mum died in September and Max said, 'they're having a good time together.'"

Just as Alison Morris would show affection by buying bits for racing, so would Claire for Graeme.

"I bought him a pair of Michael Rutter's wheels for his birthday one year, as Graeme couldn't race in the wet without a spare pair. I left them with the guys at the Spares GB stand at a show so they could bring them back for me, but Graeme saw them and was drooling over them, saying 'Who are they for? I need some wheels!' He was so touched when he got them on the morning of his birthday."

Claire knows that as soon as you're out of racing, you are very quickly forgotten in the paddock. So she is hoping to get everything together as soon as possible for 2002.

"For next year it all depends on the money and the budget as to whether we do superbikes or superstocks. It's a real eye-opener when you get involved in the sport just how little sponsorship is around and just how much is private money from the team owners. We've tried to go superbikes three years in a row, but not managed it. We just need to find a sponsor. We have a few bubbling around, but I won't get too excited until they sign on the dotted line."

So with the long hours and both the financial pressure and pressures of making decisions, why come back into racing?

Claire explains, "I don't get out anymore! I want my social life back! It was a great social life, with top people. You can't race and drink, you can't ski and drink. That's why after the race or after a day's skiing having a drink socially is such a great release. It's brilliant."

If he were alive today, Graeme would have plenty of reasons to be extremely proud. Not only for the Championship win, but because Claire's team brought previously un-thought of levels of professionalism and hospitality to the superstock paddock.

If anyone can get it together to go superbike racing next year, she can.

YVONNE WARD

Yvonne Ward always has a smile on her face, which is normally very quickly followed by a big laugh.

I first met her at the 1996 Isle of Man TT, lugging a rear wheel, tyre warmers, a pit board and various other odds and sods for a rider she was supporting by the name of Ian Lougher.

It was just three weeks after the death of her husband Steve, at a race at Anderstorp, in Sweden. As Yvonne was with Steve wherever he raced, she was there when he died on the circuit.

I remember asking her at the time what on earth she was doing at the TT, just weeks after her husband's death? And she simply said to me "Steve would have wanted me to be here and I love road-racing."

Five years later I ask the same question and Yvonne's answer is straight to the point.

"Look, you come into this world with an end-by date and whatever you put into the space in between is entirely up to you and a bonus. You don't know when you're going to die, or how. That's why I intend to live my life the way I want to and road-racers do the same. I'm a great believer in fate, you could die crossing the road or racing a bike. Who knows?"

The only questioning of support for pure road-racing came when a close friend of Yvonne and Steve's died in TT practice week, just a few weeks after her husband.

"Robert Holden's death was one that nearly stopped me going road-racing again," she says. "Robert was a top racer from New Zealand and a lovely man, and he died just three weeks after Steve. Robert was at Steve's funeral and he said, 'I'll see you on the Island for a drink when you arrive.' I was due to arrive on the Saturday and he was killed on the Friday before. I rang a good friend called Dave Kirby and said 'I'm not going to the TT. I just can't.' He talked to me and said, 'Yvonne, you have to go. Ian Lougher needs you and other riders need you, please, just go."

"I got there and after a while thought, 'what am I doing here?' Then I went to see Ian in his garage and he said, 'what are you doing out there? Get in this garage and you can do the pits for me in the race.' I stayed helping him until right up to this year. Ian was brilliant. He and Michelle his girlfriend are fantastic, they really helped. The thing is, death is an occupational hazard for road-racers, I used to tell my daughter that. When Steve died, she simply said 'it's an occupational hazard, isn't it mum?' She is still involved in bike racing. It's hard to leave it, because it's addictive and it gets into your blood and the people are wonderful. For me I can say now that going to the TT just after Steve and Robert's death was the best thing I could have done. It's like if you fall off your bike, the best thing to do is get back on as soon as you can."

Yvonne got bitten by the bike race bug before she met Steve. Her and a school friend used to hitch-hike to Scarborough on a Saturday to watch the racing. Yvonne and her family even managed to get to Monza for a GP to meet her hero at that time, Bill Ivy.

Since those days the short-circuit racing has lost its shine for Yvonne, attracting all the gloss, glamour and cash that can take a sport away from its grass roots.

"I don't enjoy short circuit racing so much now," she says. "I just love road racing, I think it's the skill, and the social side of course. In road racing everyone's like one big family, everyone knows each other, which I find is slowly disappearing in the national short circuit series. There's so much money involved, that people are more worried about what size motorhome they've got."

Yvonne's first husband was a sidecar racer, but later, she met Steve, who raced solos. "Me and Steve met and the rest is history. I was with Steve for 20 years, which seemed like a lifetime. Steve was brilliant on the roads, he had a passion for it. We used to have arguments over how he'd run a race. People used to psyche him out quite easily, but they wouldn't try and do that to me. I'd tell him he was wrong. Women are good at that and we are usually right! Just being there and having faith in him was the main thing. A lot of racing is in the mind, so this sort of support really works."

In his career Steve racked up seven 3rd places at the Isle Of Man TT and recorded the fastest lap of the TT course in 1995. Other glories with Ian Lougher, including TT wins, also came. But road-racing is tough and the people involved have to be tougher.

"I lost a lot of good friends in road-racing over here last year," says Yvonne. "I've gone to hospitals too many times, comforted relatives too many times. Again, I was almost at the end of it last year, almost wanted to stop being involved, but the people have kept me in. There were far too many deaths over there last year and people, do-gooders, have been jumping in far too quick with what should be done. Joey's death was obviously the worst. Someone summed it up by saying it was like God dying. But bear in mind Joey was doing what he loved and you can't keep harking back to Joey. I wish people would let him rest in peace. Joey was no different from any of the other lads that died. I lost many good friends last year and people tend to forget about them. Sadly, I think the roads will die out in the next few years and so will the TT. Do-gooders seem to think they know what people want. 'He's been killed on a road circuit, if he was on a short circuit he wouldn't have been killed,' they say. But my Steve was a road man and got killed on one of the safest short circuits in Europe. People walk to the end of the street and get killed. Racers know the risks and they know what's good for them. Many of them pack so much into their lives and live each day as if it could be their last. Who's got the right to tell people what they can and can't do? Nobody twists anybody's arm to race at the TT or wherever, they do it because they love it. It angers me that people in power could stop people doing what they love doing. Same as boxing. Soon as another boxer dies there's calls for it to be banned. But people forget that things like horseracing kills so many people."

"People want to do this, they want to race on the road. I feel the problem is that as soon as you iron out all of the bumps in the road, as has happened on a few of the road circuits, that's when the racers think they can go faster and that's when the accidents happen. Steve and I had both spoken about what could happen. We both felt strongly that it's not the longevity of your life but the quality of it that counts. And I couldn't have seen Steve on a life-support system. This may not seem the right thing to say, but sometimes I think that things could have been worse for Steve and even Joey. These are men for whom road racing is everything. What else would there have been for them when they retired? They died doing something that they loved."

In the last few months, Yvonne has moved to Ballymena in County Antrim, in Northern Ireland to be closer to her latest charge, road racer Victor Gilmore, as well as working as secretary at the Ulster branch of the Motor Cycle Union of Ireland club.

"I like helping Victor. He's got an R1 and an R6. I just think Victor is good and needs help, a bit of steadying down and keeping between the hedges."

Whatever your opinion about road-racing and the toll on life, you have to admire these people who challenge themselves and others in the spirit of competition.

"And anyway," says Yvonne, "If road racing is banned, I suppose I will just have to grow up. As long as I don't have to retire gracefully, I think I could just about handle it."

This feature was first published in TWO Issue 3 August 2001